1000 day challenge!

edit – The newest Version of the Blank Tracker is here: https://jeffthomann.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1000-days-backup-backup.xls Tweaked it a bit. Fixed the 30 day counter part and added a few columns to the right, etc.

Also, created a new spreadsheet that is a 1000 day countdown thing. https://jeffthomann.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/1k-days-countdown.xls.

A pdf copy of this is available at https://jeffthomann.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/1k-days-countdown-xls.pdf

Feel free to use either file however you want (ok, don’t use it to go murder someone with paper cuts and blame me – I take no responsibility for your actions! If you succeed, don’t succeed with your goals, or don’t care, I still take no responsibility for your actions!).

The 1000 day countdown is a simple one page document with 1000 day counter on it listed in reverse order from 1000 days so you can cross off every day you get past your new days… For some people simple scratch off lists like this work better than the other type of check box list. For me personally, I’ll probably use both, also use the blog, and probably an excel file or two that’s saved digitally too since I find that checking off multiple lists helps me stay more in tune and in focus with getting goals done… making things down multiple times helps reinforce the idea that I actually am accomplishing something and can succeed. Not everyone is like that… If you do the 1000 day countdown thing, it only has room for small amount of notes, so maybe just do one of those countdown pages for each goal you have… maybe as a way to continue past the 1000 day tracker for all 33 checks just for the ‘really important’ goals that you feel you ‘must do’ for 1000 days in a row (for me that’ll be daily exercises – I will do an up and down slash on morning days, a cross slash through that to make a plus sign for the evening workouts, and a circle around the middle area where that plus should be daily for the ‘no s’ successful days — that way I’ve got that tracking my three huge diet and exercise goals, and the other tracker tracking that and everything else I figure out as my 33 goals, and the blog here and digital copies of the big tracker as a way to track another copy in case the paper gets torn, messed up by getting rained on, etc….)

Here’s a tip… on the row 3, column’s G-AL, type in your tentative ‘goals’ but change format to white background and white text so that you are not tempted to mark in things before the months those goals actually ‘start’… change the text to black on white background for each cell as you get past the 30th days… This way you are really only tracking one goal the first month, which should be the focus and primary ONE THING you are doing the first first month to make this new ‘thing’ become a habit. I’ve read online in various places you NEED to focus on ONLY ONE GOAL for a MINIMUM of 21 days til it become a ‘habit’… so DO NOT FORCE YOURSELF TO DO MORE THAN ONE GOAL PER MONTH. You can do the extra the first month if you want, but DO NOT COUNT ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT FIRST GOAL THE FIRST MONTH WHEN MARKING THINGS DOWN SO THAT YOU DO NOT OVER-STRESS YOURSELF WITH MULTIPLE GOALS AND NOT BEING ABLE TO ACHIEVE THEM ALL… JUST FOCUS ON ONE GOAL AT A TIME, MAKE IT A HABIT, THEN THE NEXT MONTH ADD A NEW HABIT AND KEEP THE OLD HABIT FROM THE PRIOR MONTH(S) AS DAILY HABIT. IF YOU DO HAPPEN TO FALL OFF AND BREAK A HABIT ONCE, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP OVER IT. JUST GET UP, DUST OFF, AND TRY AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. THE GOAL HERE IS TO MAKE YOURSELF DO BETTER THINGS AND HAVE A HEALTHIER, WEALTHIER LIFESTYLE CHANGE, NOT TO BEAT YOURSELF UP FOR NOT ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO ACHIEVE. THESE NEW DAILY HABITS OUGHT TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF, NOT MAKE YOU FEEL WORSE. IF YOU START GETTING DEPRESSED SINCE YOU ARE NOT ACHIEVING THE GOALS YOU SET FOR YOURSELF, DO NOT LET THAT CONTINUE. I read somewhere the other day that you need to fail about 12 times in a row before you succeed at anything. I believe this is probably true. Changing your lifestyle to be healthier or meeting your goals is a good thing to do, but YOU MUST NOT LET NEGATIVE SELF IMAGE THOUGHTS KEEP YOU FROM ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS!!! You are a great person, and just by trying to even change one thing to improve your lifestyle, you are already doing 99 percent more than most do usually who just go about their lives without many goals. DON’T YOU DARE BEAT YOURSELF UP FOR TRYING TO DO A GOOD THING TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!

If you find doing something 30+ days in a row to be too much, maybe try another way of doing things other than what I’m suggesting in this post. There’s a really great 21 day habit tracer over at http://lds.about.com/library/weekly/2004/goal_sheet.pdf… maybe give it a try instead of or in addition, or as a pre-requisite for trying this thing that I’m trying with the multiple monthly goals… actually that one might be better anyways since it would let you do the same ONE THING over and over and over til you get at least 21 days in a row… which is great. Hell, I might even end up using that instead of this thing I’m starting in the end, lol. I’m just doing the 30 day goals because I know I can accomplish this sort of stuff as I’ve done it before… but hell, yes, it has taken me a few attempts and failures, so please DO NOT beat yourself up if you fail a time or three, or 50… just try, try, and try again. You will get the habit formed eventually. I am proud of you for even trying to meet your new goals at least once, and you should be proud of yourself too!

Remember, ultimately NO MATTER WHAT YOU DECIDE, IT WILL BE THE RIGHT THING… We are all people on this earth — with all of our imperfections. You are ‘perfect’ since you were made in God’s image even if you don’t know it yet or see it. Yes, it is good to make new goals and achieve them, but even if you fail to meet your goal(s) from time time time, you are still made in God’s image, and as such, you are perfect as you are right now…

It only takes a little bit of self love, and seeing the truth behind things to understand this. It’s very difficult to see this sort of truth sometimes, but you need to understand that this sort of truth is truth, and it is beautiful, just as the whole world is if you let it be and stop with the negative self talk, stop with the looking at yourself and the world around you as bad, etc. Stop beating yourself up for being human. None of us is ‘beyond perfection’ but we are all ‘perfect.’ We all have our own path – our own stories, our own missions and quests in life at various stages. Learning self respect and understanding yourself — and not beating yourself up all of the time is THE way to achieve your goals ultimately. Others that don’t have respect for themselves yet because they have not opened their eyes to this truth yet will try to bring you down, and cause your own self image to follow in their footsteps in trying to bring you down, but you should not allow that to happen. Negativity breeds negativity. Try to stop having so much negativity in your life, especially when it comes to looking at your own personal surroundings, and ultimately your own inner self. Maybe one ‘goal’ you should set for yourself is to try to slow down or stop negative ideas, thought patterns, etc. from impacting you… I’ve read on several blogs that some people have accomplished this sometimes. It’s not something I’ve been able to do all the way yet, but might make that a goal one month someday as my ONE monthly goal that I want to turn in to a habit over time. Doing so might be the best ‘goal’ one could ever attempt to achieve because seeing the world as it really is is a good thing to do… not biased by the news media’s dreary tones and hidden messages and agendas… not biased by negative coworker’s sayings bringing you down and making you hate the amazing place you are employed for at the job you might actually like if you could just ignore the negativity they throw at you daily, etc. I find myself entering a ‘happy place’ when I do more things involving my right brain… stuff like taking pictures of asphalt and concrete walls, clouds, trees, dirt, flowers, etc. helps me see the world through a different lens. There is a really great video about this on Ted Talks that I posted to in a previous post… it’s over at http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html…

I will try to embed the video below, but it doesn’t seem to be working right for some reason, which is why the link above is there.

that sort of thing is one reason I MUST make art related goals some of my 33 goals. I need to find ways to bring art in to my life more as making art allows me to enter that right brain thought pattern more, and enjoy the ‘heaven on earth’ that it causes… It’s the sort of thing why I think artists, or musicians, or any number of others in their own professions can ‘enter the zone’ and the world becomes better for them… I could write a book or library of books on this topic, and may in future posts, but for now will just leave it at this since I’ve already probably gotten far off enough on the topic of this tracker for now, lol. I’m just saying, don’t beat yourself up much… and if you want, making changes in your attitudes and self talk patterns might be one way to do some personal goals if you really want TRUE change in your own life and to make good habits become great life-changing lifestyles for yourself that can very positively impact yourself, and all of those around you… Remember, we are all human beings… and everyone in the history books was too. ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

The 33rd goal really just starts on day 991, so if you want to continue this past first 1000 days, you should take that in to account. Some blogs I’ve read indicate that you need to do one new thing at least 21 days in a row before it’s really a ‘habbit’… I only went up to day 1000 since it seemed like a logical number to go up to… You could theoretically only do 990 days and then start a new 990 days after that, etc. I just figure 1000 is a good goal since it’s easy number to remember… If you get that far you should probably allow yourself a little slack since hell, you just accomplished doing something for over 3 years in a row – great pat on the back!!! 🙂

If you prefer it in Google, here it is (Google’s formatting is not as pretty):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AppC9Gwr9zBIdFBsN1hRWDhQRnhkejBYYTBPSzJfWUE
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Read about a lot of 30 day and 100 day challenges in various places in the blogsphere, but no 1000 day challenges yet… so I’ve decided to create a way to track something like that. The idea is really to do a series of 33 one month challenges and form those challenges in to daily habbits… and use a checkbox type of system to keep yourself in check with all of these challeges. I figure since I screwed up the 90 full days of doing the Power 90 already, this is a new start sort of… but a continuation of that… so the counter starts over sort of, but in a completely new way with much more in the focus than just that 90 day end goal…

Could be something as simple as smiling at someone daily, doing a workout in morning, doing a workout at night, cutting out snacks from diet, cutting out soda from diet, cutting out having seconds at meals, cutting out sweets from diet, or as complex as you want it to be… it doesn’t even have to be focused on health. Maybe you want to give yourself the habbit of doing some thing every day and want a way to just build that in your life…

Anyways, below is the blank tracker for this thing on google docs. Tried to make it so that it tracks days, has check boxes for all 33 challenges for every day even though you would not use all of them til the last month… and also put in dashes on every 7th day since you probably need to build in one day a week that you ‘rest’ and ease up on yourself… after all doing any one thing for 1000 days is a heck of a lot. You could do it every day and not do the one day of rest if you wanted, but really you just like I am human, and made in God’s image (if God exists) so you need to let yourself have one day of rest probably… but hey, if you think you can do something every day for a thousand days without any rest, go for it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AppC9Gwr9zBIdDh0dXAwTlRSckpHVDIwVVE3Q1dQM2c

the excel file above may need to be changed in page setup to make it print right. Below pdf was adjusted with a few changes in that… Sorry that the legend on right doesn’t have 1-33 on each page. That was the original intention. Could probably be fixed with a little tweak here and there.
https://jeffthomann.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1k-day-challenge.pdf

The idea with the ‘goal for the day’ and the legend as it is is for it to be a write in just like the others are… because every day if you write in your date, goal, and write down in the next box to the goal for the day the goal you completed it becomes more of a positve ego booster type of thing… You right your goals for day down in morning before you try the goal, then write down the goal in the daily notes box after you completed that day’s goal. If you are making it a 30 day challenge thing… do the same goal every day for 30 days, and use the one on habbits as the checkbox for that day, etc. The legend is just a sort of reminder to yourself about what your goals are… in case it gets confusing. This thing is made to be used on a clip board or something similar so that it’s easy to keep track of… but you could just edit it in excel file you update daily or whatever. I like using clip boards and have been doing that with power 90 to track my stuff in addition to this blog and an excel file in my computer. I use all three to track stuff like that since it keeps it more in my brain…

The last few days have been heck on the power 90 goal… with the arm stab thing, and then trying to workout again after that. I’m making up this 1k day tracker to start tracking my own goals in getting healthy and figured it might help others do similar which is why it’s here.

My first goal is probably going to be doing the Power 90 or some similar type of workout in the mornings… Then maybe add habbit 2 as doing workout at night, etc. Up til now I was tracking power 90 and the nightly add ons with handwritten papers on clipboard. I think this sort of tracker will work better and be nice and neat and actual help me keep track of goals better without being sloppy, hard to read, or time consuming to put together.

Not sure on this but some of my 33 goals are going to probably be morning workout, afternoon workout, no snacks, no sweets, no soda, check sugar in morning, check sugar at night, do some writing daily in a journal (not sure if I can make myself do the 3 single space pages that the artist’s way books call for, but might try it… just not sure on it since that’s a lot of writing and that amount of writing eats at free time that might go towards family time r&r time, or workout in evening time… but maybe doing something like one page a day for a month, then two, then finally 3 might make it possible? My hand cramps after writing that much, etc..), drawing a day, 3d model a day, or maybe even something simpler…. no negative thoughts for day, smile at people today, stay focused on one positive thing every day, etc… not sure on all the goals yet, but health goals will likely be my main focus for a while. I know goals will change over time, that’s why this is all fairly blank and just a skeleton right now…

I know I can change my ways to be better and get healthy. I know I can ultimately get to a great goal BMI weight by 1000 days from now. I’m not sure if I’ll start this tracker thing this week or next week. Might aim for starting it on the beginning of the month, but not sure yet.

Some other ideas for my ‘goals’:

MORNING WORKOUT
EVENING WORKOUT
NO S… NO SNACKS, NO SWEETS, NO SECONDS, NO SODAS (MIGHT HAVE TO BREAK THIS IN TO 4 MONTHLY GOALS)
MINIMUM OF ONE SIMPLE 5 MINUTE DRAWING A DAY
WRITE ONE PAGE OF MORNING PAGES WITH ARTIST’S WAY
WRITE A SECOND PAGE OF MORNING PAGES WITH ARTIST’S WAY DAILY
WRITE A THIRD PAGE OF MORNING PAGES WITH ARTIST’S WAY DAILY, AND MAYBE MORE…
MINIMUM OF ONE SIMPLE 10 MINUTE DRAWING A DAY IN ADDITION TO THE 5 MINUTE DRAWINGS
ONE POEM A DAY
MINIMUM OF 10 PHOTOS A DAY
ONE CONCEPT WRITING/DRAWING IN SKETCHBOOK DAILY
ONE PAINTING BASED ON ONE CONCEPT WEEKLY. (MINIMUM ONE HOUR PER DAY FOR 6 DAYS IN A ROW
ONE BLOG POST DAILY?
REMOVE NEGATIVE THOUGHT
ADD POSITIVE THOUGHTS TO YOUR DAY ABOUT AS MANY THINGS AS POSSIBLE… CHANGE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS IN TO POSITIVE ONES. TALLY THEM UP AS YOU COME ACROSS NEGATIVE THOUGHS AND COUNTER EVERY ONE NEGATIVE WITH 3 POSITIVE
LOOK AT NEW ARTWORK DAILY – BLOG ABOUT IT.
DO DISHES
MINIMUM OF 20 PHOTOS A DAY
WALK ON MORNING BREAK AT WORK (NOT SURE ON THIS ONE SINCE I’LL BE DOING THE MORNING/EVENING WORKOUTS)
WALK ON AFTERNOON BREAK AT WORK (NOT SURE ON THIS ONE SINCE I’LL BE DOING THE MORNING/EVENING WORKOUTS)
CREATE ONE DOODLE, SKETCH OR CONCEPT ON LUNCH BREAK… OR ALTERNATIVELY DO ONE 3-5 MINUTE SPEED DRAWING IN THAT TIME SINCE LUNCH BREAKS ARE ONLY 30 MINUTES
PROTIEN AS 20% OR SO OF MEAL AT EVER MEAL (EGGS OR DELI MEAT MOST LIKELY IF NOT SOMETHING ELSE), 3 MEALS A DAY
COUNT CARBS — NO MORE THAN 55 PER MEAL!!!! 3 MEALS A DAY.
CHECK SUGAR IN MORNING
CHECK SUGAR IN EVENING
GRATITUDE JOURNAL – WRITE 5 THINGS YOU ARE THANKFUL, HAPPY, OR APPRECIATIVE ABOUT DAILY.
NO SIX DOLLAR, SIXTEEN DOLLAR, OR SIXTY DOLLAR SH!T5 (don’t eat out)

My suggestion, or at least one thing I’ve done to modify my own personal copy that I’ll use to log this thing in my computer is to add new row above day one and then in the 1-33 edit formatting to type sideways… then in daily goal for first 30 days make the content of those fields equal what is in that field (g3 on mine but really depends on how you edit on yours…) That way you only have to write the one goal out if you are doing this in computer instead of on clipboard once, and then can just add notes later freely, etc… Since it’s a spreadsheet you can also add whatever you want to new rows and columns… track an entire lifetime, add in new columns for sugar level checks, blood pressure checks, etc. Heck you could even make it in to a daily calander with to do lists since you’ll look at it every day.. put birthdays on there as a yearly goal so you get cards to who you need to. Put change oil on car every x months, etc.

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